Comedy
Veronica Lee
Natalie Palamides doesn't do things by halves. Actually, the Los Angeles-based clown does just that in her inventive new show Weer – a hit at the Traverse Theatre at this year's Edinburgh Fringe – in which she plays the male and female partners in a fractious relationship. Simultaneously.Weer – the title is explained late on – tells the story of Mark and Christina. Palamides' costume and wig are divided into male and female halves, so as her left side is turned to the audience she is Christina, with her right side, she is Mark. It is, as you may imagine, a very physical performance, but Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Kiri Pritchard-McLean has spoken on stage before about her interest in helping young people – including in her 2017 show, Appropriate Adult, in which she talked about being a mentor to a vulnerable youngster. In Peacock, her latest touring show which I saw as part of the inaugural Brighton Dome Comedy Festival, she talks about how she and her partner, Dan, came to be foster carers.There are, the comic informs us, more than 100,000 children in the care system in the UK. It's a subject that in less assured hands could be dull, preachy or an exercise in virtue-signalling – she Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Rose Matafeo knows how to make an entrance, as she enters the stage with a choreographed dance. She's useless at ending things, she says – shows, relationships – so she's going to start On and On and On with something memorable. She doesn't need to, as this affable Kiwi has the audience hooked straight away in her first stand-up since her success with romcom Starstruck, 2018's Horndog and her appearance in 2019 edition of Taskmaster.Starstruck – which she also co-wrote and starred in – was a funny and honest account of twentysomething relationships. But now, at 32, Matafeo is doing Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow The Ellen DeGeneres Show attracted Hollywood stars and politicians and she was paid millions for it. But then, in 2022, it was cancelled amid accusations there was a toxic atmosphere on set created by senior members of her team. This is the context of For Your Approval, which the comic says is her last stand-up appearance.The Netflix Special starts with a film giving a brief overview of DeGeneres’ career before she comes on stage to a standing ovation, the first of the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Before Joe Rogan gained fame for his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, he has been, variously, a comic, presenter of goofball television shows and an analyst of UTC bouts. Now with his Netflix Special he’s returning to his first occupation, as a stand-up. It was recorded at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, Texas.Rogan, as his fans will know, is not short of opinions (with his politics on the right of the spectrum in the United States) and can turn a smart phrase. But in Burn the Boats he muses on the quotidian rather than the weighty political subjects often discussed in his Read more ...
Veronica Lee
You have to admire the ambition of a show called Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the latest from Zoë Coombs Marr, which she performed at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and is now in its Soho Theatre residency. It’s an hour that takes on some big themes – sexuality, mental health, the state of comedy – while digging down into her life as she reaches 40, and has done something of a stock check.For the most part it works as Coombs Marr talks us through not what we may consider to be the big life events of weddings and funerals, but those brief moments we experience that stick in our Read more ...
Veronica Lee
You may spend some of Adam Sandler's new Netflix Special wondering what's going on. But if you're a fan of his alma mater, Saturday Night Live, you'll guess that the clearly staged first few minutes act as a homage to its “cold opening”, as we see Sandler arrive at the venue, walk through the backstage mayhem of greeters, fans and hangers-on, and then take the stage.In Love You, Sandler teams up again with Josh Safdie, who co-directed him in Uncut Gems, a departure for Sandler the actor from his previous straight-up comedy or geek roles; here the departure is from traditional standup, as the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Though among the most successful film comedians of the early sound era, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s cinematic partnership had actually started in the early 1920s. It’s easy to overlook their silent short films, 15 of which are collected here.The oldest, 1921’s Lucky Dog, is an entertaining curio, a starring vehicle for Laurel’s Keatonesque naif with Ollie in a subordinate role as a hapless thug. Stan’s athleticism is impressive, whether he’s being struck by a streetcar or sneaking into a dog show on all fours, and there’s a winning turn from the titular canine. Both actors signed contracts Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Joe Kent-Walters has been given the DLT Entertainment Best Newcomer Award in the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and deservedly so, for Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: LIVE!!!! The show is a blast.It's set in a working men's club in Rotherham which has seen better days, as has its MC, Frankie Monroe. (This device is much helped by the show being performed late at night in an overheated, low-ceilinged basement room at Monkey Barrel.)What we soon come to realise is the weird-looking Frankie, who for some (unexplained) reason appears throughout with his face covered in Sudocrem, has long ago Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Amy Gledhill won the Don and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show, the main award at the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards for Make Me Look Fit on the Poster. The show has variously been described as “bawdy comedy delivered with a blush”, “a funny woman rightly confident of her comedy talents” and “a brilliant physical comedian”.Accepting her award, Gledhill said: “This is insane. I saw the other people on this list and I thought, 'I don't have to write a script!'”Gledhill originally came to Edinburgh fame as one half of the sketch duo The Delightful Sausage, with Chris Cantrill, who was also Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Grace Mulvey, Assembly Roxy ★★★ Grace Mulvey has been single for five years, she tells us at the top of the show, a matter of some disappointment to her mother back in Dublin. Even moving to London two years ago didn't change her dating status, despite the best efforts of her flatmates. But then, they're lesbians and she's straight, so maybe their advice isn't quite hitting the spot.Mulvey's debut show, Tall Baby, covers a lot of territory, but fortunately she talks at a million miles an hour: she mentions her previous career in tech, dealing with the British public in a deadend job to Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Sheeps, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★This is the first new show that Sheeps – Liam Williams, Al Roberts and Daran Johnson – have produced in six years, but they say The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You) is their last. Having gone their separate ways some years ago, the trio have gathered together for one last time to say farewell to their fans.Keen followers will savour every minute of the show, of course, while neutral observers might pick holes in some of the hour's content. Sheeps have always played with – actually disregarded might be a better description – the rules Read more ...